Restaurant Review: Ozzy's Gyros

Ozzy's Gyros (Greek and Mediterranean Cuisine)
Kingsport Town Center (Ft. Henry Mall)
Kingsport, TN 37664
Phone 423-392-1170
Online Menu - http://www.kingsporttowncenter.com/pages/main/documents/OzzysMenuonly_000.pdf

Ah, the Ft. Henry Mall on a Saturday night.  I've not been there for at least a year and still mostly tweens and teens in clusters everywhere.  Still, it was worth visiting to experience Ozzy's.  Ozzy's Gyros is a Greek and Mediterranean restaurant that opened in the  Kingsport Town Center, which to everyone but it's owners' is the old Ft. Henry Mall in the split of the old Roller Woods between Memorial Blvd. and Ft. Henry Drive.  The restaurant originally opened in the Johnson City Mall a few years ago in their food court area where I had my first encounter with them.  From what I recall several years ago from a newspaper write up when they first opened in JC, the owner is an Israeli that somehow ended up in Northeast Tennessee. They had a pretty good product, as I love Greek-style gyros and about the only other place in the Tri-Cities that has them that I know of is the Mad Greek in Bristol not very far from BIR.

This restaurant is the second Ozzy's Gyros in the Tri-Cities.  They have moved out of the JC Mall and very recently moved into a new location at 2203 Mckinley Rd. in JC which is just off State of Franklin Rd. near ETSU and the JC Medical Center.  From what I overheard from one employee telling a customer, they moved out of the JC Mall because the rent had been bumped up to $5K a month! Considering they had just a typical mall's fairly narrow food court walk-up counter, I was amazed at that kind of rent money.  Of course the JC Mall has probably four times the traffic at any given time compared to KTC, it would still require selling a huge amount of food just to cover the rent not counting the other overhead such as food costs, payroll, insurance & etc.  No wonder they moved out of there.  Johnson City Mall's loss is our gain. They moved last September into the old Chick fil-A location near Charlie's Steakery and Auntie Annes on the lower level and they also have inside seating which they didn't have in the JC Mall.

Greek as well as other Mediterranean cuisine is something that most in our area aren't familiar with unless they've either been to that region or bravely tried new foods in bigger cities.  It's nothing like Italian and for the most part, it's a much healthier selection of foods compared to what we're used to.  Ozzy's claim to fame is the Gyro, which is NOT pronounced "Gy-ro/Ji-Ro" nor "He-ro".  It's pronounced "Ee-Ro".  This is the original sandwich wrap that's common throughout Greece and the entire eastern Mediterranean area including the Middle East. In the UK it's known as a Doner Kebab and is a popular late night meal after pub crawling.  It basically consists of a sizeable pita flatbread filled with a beef/lamb combination that in Ozzy's case has been vertically rotisseried on a real Kronos broiler and shaved off the loaf at the time you order.  It usually has accompaniments of lettuce, tomato, onion and a wonderful dressing called Tzatziki sauce.  Everything's wrapped up nicely in paper so that you can eat it without ruining your clothing. Tzatziki sauce is something that's a bit hard to describe but wonderful to savor.  It's something like ranch dressing and yet so much more.  It's made with garlic, diced cucumbers, yogurt and sour cream, olive oil, black pepper and a few other seasonings and is absolutely delicious.  It also makes a wonderful salad dressing and there are many recipes on the internet if you'd like to try making it yourself. Greeks like to make it really heavy on the garlic, which I very much like but Ozzy's doesn't make it that intense so that you don't have to worry about offending your co-workers after lunching there!

Unlike many places (not around here) that serve gyros, Ozzy's puts a whole lot more meat on theirs than veg.  I've had it other places where the veg was probably 75% and 25% meat.  Not Ozzy's, they reverse it to about 75% (maybe more) kebab meat and 25% or less of veg.  The way the meat is seasoned before it's rotisseried, the larger percentage of meat makes it wonderful.  All of the small amount of grease/fat is drained off the meat during the cooking process so that it ends up being a quite lean meat product.  The pita flatbread that they use is nothing like local grocers sell: it's thicker and of much better consistency and they have a panini-like press that lightly grills them before they assemble it.  These are excellent gyros people!

Their prices are quite reasonable for what they serve. A beef/lamb or chicken gyro with fries and a large drink is only $6.24.  The same choice of gyro with two sides and a large drink is only $6.74. They don't put the fries in to cook until you order, so they are about as fresh as you can get. My son ordered the lamb/beef gyro with the single side of fries and that was a lot of fries on his plate.  The fries they serve are on the thin side, maybe slightly thinner than McDonald's.  Sides are such diverse offerings as roasted garlic or roasted red pepper hummus with pita bread triangles, falafel, baba ganoush, dolma, fries and tzatziki sauce with pita bread triangles, tabouleh and Greek salad.  Before I saw the chilled table that contained their cold sides, I had ordered the tabouleh but quickly changed it to the falafel.  Their tabouleh looked to be at least 90% flat-leaf parsley with just a smidgen of bulgur wheat, which just isn't right.  It should be at least half bulgur with parsley, onions, garlic, olive oil, mint & etc.  The dolma looked good but were pretty small (finger-sized) and what can you say about hummus?  You have to taste it to determine if it's good or not. My wife initially ordered the baba ganoush as one of her sides but they were out of it.  Done right, baba ganoush is a wonderful seasoned eggplant spread.  I was pleased to see that like the french fries, they also didn't put the falafel into the fryer until after I ordered and this side was of two pieces approximately two inches round, sort of like big hushpuppies. They had a noticeable amount of cumin in them, along with the foundation of fava and garbanzo beans and were quite tasty, if not tasting a bit more Indian than I expected.  Even drinks are a bargain considering: $1.49 for a large drink, although they do charge for refills.  Even their baklava was in a pan looking as if it was homemade instead something frozen, shipped in, thawed and put on a fancy plate as most places offer.

Overall, I'm quite happy with Ozzy's and so glad they are now a lot closer than JC or Bristol so that I can get a gyro fix satisfied without having to drive so far!  The restaurant needs to spend some $$ to improve the ambiance of the place as it is a bit dreary with grey walls and bare concrete floors.  It needs some posters, photos, paintings or something on the walls and some nice Greek or Middle Eastern music at a reasonable volume being played would also help out a lot.  I have no complaints about the employees we encountered.  They were quite friendly and even asked how our meal was as we left. All things considered, I'd give Ozzy's Gyros a strong 8 out of 10 rating based upon just the food.  It wouldn't take much for them to bring it up to a solid nine if they made the investment. They're also on Facebook: just search for "Ozzy's Gyros" and give them a 'like'.  I definitely liked them!